22 years ago, a gunman entered Dunblane Primary School in Scotland, killing 16 kids and a teacher. The UK govt responded by enacting tight gun control legislation. In the 8000+ days since, there have been a total of 0 school shootings in the UK. #SantaFeHighSchool

And, by the way, to those who say London has a higher murder rate than New York...no. These are the murder per 100,000 rates from the last year that INCLUDE the recent months with large murder numbers in London. Still WAY below US cities.

And, about knife attacks in the UK: in 2016, Texas (pop 28m) had 1,459 murders; England & Wales (pop 58m) had 723 murders. In Texas, which has HALF the population of Eng/Wal but DOUBLE the murders, 175 of those murders were stabbings.

In 2016, 1,600 people were murdered in the US with knives. That’s ON TOP of the 12,000 people murdered with guns. So, spare us all the “But people in Britain stab each other” rationale, as if no-one is ever stabbed in the US.

24 hours later: I'm from the US but lived in the UK. Some unsurprising-yet-depressing reactions to these 4 tweets. A common denominator in many of the comments was the clear, pervasive influence of disinformation about both Britain and gun control. And poor math skills.

Most common response to me: "Were there mass school shootings BEFORE Dunblane?" Answer: No. But, the fact that UK govt took action after one event showed what I consider to be decisive action. Gun control clearly made it less LIKELY to happen again, and that is the whole point.

And then there’s this: the NRA blames school shootings on Ritalin. Not insane, unfettered access to weapons of war. Ritalin. #SantaFeHighSchool

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Swedish locality of Staffanstorp - run by Moderate/Sweden Democrat coalition - decides that students in schools who do not eat pork won't be provided with a meat alternative as vegetarian is offered. This seen a sending message that Muslims not welcome, which local govt denies.

Moderate-SD authority in Staffanstorp now arguing that this is about "economics," but in their platform they clearly state that "cultural characteristics" (such as halal meat) should not be accommodated by local government. So, it's about laying down cultural markers.

There are similar cases in Europe where pork became a symbol of national identity. As I wrote in the @WashingtonPost last year, it's never really about the food (if pork were removed from school menus, and no-one was told, would parents even notice?). It's manufactured outrage.

I love the fact that US conservatives are only now "discovering" that Sweden is actually a capitalist country. They must have missed IKEA, Volvo, Saab, H&M, Spotify, Ericsson, Electrolux...

Conservatives now argue that capitalism made Sweden a good place to live. It's actually regulation, unionization & use of tax money for egalitarian policies that made Sweden a good place to live. Those things would never happen if the "free market" was left to its own devices.

Let's bust the myth that there's responsible "Swedish Capitalism." There's just Capitalism, and how it's regulated. When IKEA didn't like the taxes in Sweden, did it stay out of egalitarian solidarity? Nope. It left and established itself as a Dutch charity for tax purposes.

I live in Sweden, and I can tell people in the US that what I get for my taxes is worth paying a bit more for. Subsidized daycare. Subsidized pre & after-school care. Universal healthcare. Paid parental leave. Free university (for now). Oh, and no insane spending on the military.

In Sweden, tax value also has long-term effects: more security; knowledge that illness won't bankrupt; knowledge that having/caring for a baby won't bankrupt or derail careers (usually the mother's); more gender balance in domestic labor. In short, treating citizens like humans.

Take subsidized pre-school in Sweden. From age of 1 until school, kids can go Mon-Fri, 35-40 hrs/week. Payment based on income, but MAX payment for higher-income earners around US $100 a month. For many it’s free. Then, once at school, similar after-school care for similar money.

Related threads

People ask me how I managed to overcome failure or how I "made it" or at what point did I know I was going to be a success. I always give a canned answer because frankly, I don't want to type so much. But I have gotten this question a lot so let me tell you guys a bit about me.

I was born in the 80s, in Zaria. We lived in Gusau, Zamfara State. My Dad was a very successful business man, imported goods from the UK, until Buhari happened in 1984. Within years, his business shut down, inflation shot up, the currency's value eroded, market prices were fixed

and people were imprisoned for speaking out (sound familiar? Oops Buhari is President now. Leopard and dark spots)

Growing up, I didnt know we lacked anything. Until around 1989. I was moved from my school to a cheaper school, Ideal Primary School, then to yet another cheaper...

[Thread] A photo journey through an island in the Outer Hebrides off the coast of #Scotland, Lewis and Harris, with a small bit of #tech/#Amazon/#Netflix thrown in for good measure 🤓

Lewis and Harris is about a 3-hour ferry ride from Ullapool, which is already probably further up into Scotland than the vast majority of people will ever go. The view as you leave the Ullapool harbor is 😗

Once you get to Lewis and Harris (pop. 22,000), you've got a pretty wide open landscape in front of you.

What people forget is the news media's apparent hostility towards @theSNP is one of the reasons social media became a core communications channel for the party early on (2010), before other UK political parties began taking part. The approach was simple in theory, difficult to...

... carry out, but remarkably successful:
• You can't pretend to be social.
• This is all about building real, trusted relationships at scale, over time.
• Be authentic and engage, enthuse, educate and empower people around @theSNP & the idea of an independent #Scotland.
...

5 Tweet Thread
The @NRA & #gun companies are not evil but they are part of the problem. And the amazing thing is: all the folks clamoring to #BoycottNRA don't even know how bad it really is!
5 things the #NRA & gun manufacturers have successfully lobbied to create...

1) Background chk system overseen by the ATF that is forbidden to digitize records & so must keep all records on paper2) BG chk system that is enormously hobbled at ATF bec of extreme funding shortages so that it can't do its job well & so that the NRA can claim it doesn't work

3) Passage of the #Dickey Amendment that forbids gov't research from reaching conclusions that might be construed as advocating for gun control, thus allowing the #NRA to say, "No studies show..." and leaving legislators with no data to back up laws that might work